I shouldn't be on here, got way to much work to do. But I'm just going to say this: we need to start talking about reducing *average* consumption as absolutely necessary to prevent planetary disaster. This needs to become part of the Green New Deal - somehow. 1/

In order to have this conversation, we need to clarify the following:
1. Consumption =/= freedom.
2. Consumption =/= progress.
3. Reducing average consumption =/= making average people worse off.
4. We all benefit under "public luxury & private frugality" (HT @GeorgeMonbiot ). 2/

5. Economies oriented to spur private overconsumption =/= steady work or steady economies, quite the contrary.
6. and probably most important: the aspiration to better & more meaningful lives is fundamentally opposed to consumerism.
3/

To give an illustration of 6, it's interesting to consider the great, late, Chilean ecological economist Manfred Max-Neef's four axiological categories of human need satisfaction:
* Being
* Having
* Doing
* Interacting.
4/

Manfred Max-Neef's point was that well-being could be achieved using fundamentally different strategies (including negative, positive, synergistic satisfiers) along these 4 axiological directions. "Being" has to do with intrinsic or socially-determined characteristics.
5/

"Having" is ownership (or access) to goods and services.
"Doing" is action-oriented, and has to do with exerting personal and collective agency.
"Interacting" is relational, turned towards community, organising, public spaces and institutions.
6/

Consumer society means that right now we are stuck, overwhelmingly, on "having" as a means to need satisfaction, often via "negative satisfiers" like private cars.
Our task is to transform our societies & cultures to value "doing" and "interacting" as our avenues to well-being.7/

We must turn from passive consumers towards active, organised, interacting "doers", makers and shakers of a new shared prosperous and lower consumption future. This transformation should start now. The work & jobs at the core of the GND is a start. 8/

But coming to terms with reducing average consumption is a conversion that most people don't want to have. It's not optional, however. This is the work.
Cheers & sorry for a long (but not long enough) thread. End/

This thread is taking off (whoops) so I should give full credit to @Miklos_Antal for the idea of people & cultures moving from 'being' to 'having' to 'doing' & 'interacting.' Another paper we should finish! It will be fantastic, an really important contribution.

. @Miklos_Antal developed this great idea after watching the "Century of the Self" 4 part documentary series by Adam Curtis, which documents (part of) the transition from 'being' (=feudalism, rigid class society) to 'having' (consumer society, self actualisation through having).

This documentary series is available in its entirety here, well worth watching.

Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future & the school strikes, the Sunrise Movement, all the valve turners and water & air & forest & land protectors: these activists are the harbingers of the era of 'doing'. A new time when we value each other by how much we can save.